My Too (Many) Cents

Hello everyone, I recently found this poem I wrote 3 years ago for a water conservation contest. The sky cried, The plants died, The mountains separated from their snow-clad bride, A thin stream emerged, laden with guilt it asked, Have I fulfilled my purpose? With childish purity and tumultuous flow, Helping the mountains thrive and grow, Repaying the debt it did owe, A river emerged, with its life built it asked, Have I fulfilled my purpose? Coming down, from when the world was at its feet, Supporting civilizations from heat, giving wheat and concrete. Thinking that its work was complete, It approached the sea, and laden with silt it asked, Have I fulfilled my purpose? The stream was now old and one with the sea, Corals bloomed with pearls of wisdom, while fishes swam free, But the cycle of life had to continue and the sky had a tax to levy, As it evaporated, covering its deathbed with a quilt it asked, Have I fulfilled my purpose? The tap was open! The bucket was broken! Could no one...

This quote of Nietzsche's is perhaps his most well known quote and many people have different (mis)interpretations of it, but mostly used to refer to how the scientific revolution led to increasing secularization and rendered earlier conceptions of god unbelievable. That conception of god in the west had been a source of most ethical and aesthetic judgements so Nietzsche foresaw the 'death of god' (correctly) to have great implications. This poem is not  the explanation I think Nietzsche meant originally, this is a fun idea I had which could be another alternate interpretation which I decided to flesh out. Here I consider the linguistic implications of the phrase 'God is dead' basically meaning 'God' is a dead word , which is pretty much the nature of all words/language or at least in daily parlance where we forget the feeling or phenomenological state that should be associated with words. It also expresses hope for a return to idealist paradigms which is pr...

The paper is where my creativity goes to die Like the dying carcass of a newly swatted fly, Like the fluid of a paint becoming rigid when it dries, Like an addict coming down from his ecstatic high, Like a baby which doesn't quite understand so it cries, Like the difference between the truth and our many unlies, Like surrendering to authority to try and get by. When I see the process beginning I give up and sigh, It uses me as a medium rather uncaring of my agency To express itself without a care for human decency But when It's finished it's not quite it What I just wrote seems full of shit. Not a self deprecative false modesty But rather a recognition of the absolute's beauty. And rather confounding nature of the expression of pure potentiality. And maybe this is how it is meant to be. Everyday lexicon is too unfree. Metaphors wrapped in infinite chains of self reference Trying to grasp (at) the sea in a jug To take some home to quench our thirst But our sweaty hands l...

This year I applied to around 15 universities to continue my studies. Where I got rejected from 8 universities at once yesterday, which was probably one of the biggest failures I would have faced in my life but oddly where other failures in my life have left me stumbling, gasping, resentful or jealous, this only strengthened my resolve to be better. Here I want to write what I learnt from it, hopefully you can learn somethings from what is basically a glorified journal entry too. etymology the word failure in its oldest word roots often comes from a feeling of stumbling or falling. An interesting aside about the etymology is that somewhere along the line, the word which originally comes from stumbling or falling got related to self deception, trick, or be lacking. This is something I'll come back to later. what it actually means in most circumstances How does failure actually come about in today's world? Most often it comes about due to not performing upto a certain expectatio...

Hello everyone, these are some short poems I wrote recently which I decided to post because I haven't posted in a bit. Loneliness When becoming becomes unbecoming, When longing no longer succumbs to numbing, But on the path of the ascetic, I stumbled and wept, Desperately objecting to my wicked desire attaching to objects. My dispassion for the world rages like a fire. Doesn't that raging fire betray your desire? For liberation from this world of pain and sorrow, To turn away from, and never see the morrow, You will still falter, Your journey still remains, Until you sacrifice at the altar, your want to obtain, Which will sublate the you in the you, And the you which you have accrued, And you will finally understand what you have pursued. Meaning Standing on top of the mountain Contemplated the wanderer. What purpose had his pursuits Of only climbing higher? Tired and exhausted, He finally wanted to sit down. But he wanted to sit down Only when he knew others wouldn't frown...

The word insecurities comes from the prefix 'In' which means 'not' and the word secure. If we consider the etymology of the word secure, it used to have two meanings, one which encompasses the meaning that we consider today, i.e. without fear of harm, carefree or 'dreading no evil' from the Latin word securus. However, it also had another meaning, which was a negative one in the sense of recklessness and carelessness.  Insecurity is today considered explicitly negative, but considering the other meaning, how can being free from carelessness be explicitly negative? Considering both poles which make up the definition of the word, I think the word in it's totality represents the careful teeter dance of being cognizant of societal expectations so as to not deceive ourselves, but at the same time not letting Societal expectations make us anxious or dread them. Here, I seek to address the second meaning of insecurity. Insecurities are what make us want to continuo...

Writing a blog is a rather daunting task. I mean, it probably shouldn't be considering that I have access to my working laptop and an internet connection. The daunting task occurs right before pressing the publish button as I contemplate on how much I will regret posting this blog as compared to the joy I would receive after broadcasting an idea I wanted to share with the world. This confusing calculus of cringing which I'm sure you have felt before posting something to your social media is what determines whether a blog post languishes along with my innumerable other drafts or gets to see the light of day. Even after I have posted something, I constantly wonder whether it is a good enough reflection of my ideas or should it be taken down. Being scared of what you post online is a feeling that we all relate to, but even though we all know the internet is a 'forever archive', there seems to be an irrational belief even past pragmatic considerations. And where there is an...

This poem is special to me. I was awarded the Silver Medal in the Queen's Common Wealth Essay Competition for this piece. Compassion and Inclusion The greatness of a community, Is measured by its member’s compassion, No, it’s not how it recognises ingenuity! Or how it treats true passion! It’s not about equal opportunity, Or how resources are rationed! Our instincts fall to this importunity, Our values are now refashioned.   Is the faculty of discrimination, Ignorance or rationality, Is empathy the mark of a great nation? Or is it indicative of a great malady. Are people different since their creation? Or is there no case against equality? Concerning are equal outcomes and lack of gradation, Not equal opportunity and an inclusive mentality.   Why is making that observation, An act of bigotry and bravery,               Of course, recognising differences,   ...

  Catch it Where it falls A single raindrop Fell from the sky And enriched the ground, Hitherto dry, As the flower buds opened To salute its arrival The animals bellowed, For another year of survival.   I observed inwards, Towards myself, And a drop fell on me, An ink blot on the surface of consciousness, And then I had an epiphany, For each moment is a symphony, Of a million hues and experiences, An unfathomable amount of details In perfect harmony.   The graceful and exquisite pattern Turned suddenly into a torrential downpour, Animals turned from a slow ecstatic appreciation, To a violently passionate encore, The leaves which previously looked drooped and dew laden, Were rejuvenated in a deluge, Of course, some flowed away in the storm, But others were reinvigorated and transformed, And the peacock’s dance reached its zenith.   I again looked inside myself, And got scared from what I saw, A beast in t...

  5200 Weeks 5200 weeks, Is what the lucky ones possess, To live and love and seek, To learn the truth or to achieve success,   As infants we begin this cyclic affair, For 700 weeks we are blissfully unaware, Under our parents care, With sincere admiration and prayer, A naïve innocence and an affirmative flair, But when the world is laid bare, Our beliefs we forswear, And to defy we dare.   As youth we dive deeper in this ocean, Our days are full of commotion, Our families are at remotion, Our nights are full of emotion, But over the next 400 weeks, we must challenge every notion, Of society, identity and devotion, But devoted we must be, and also in constant motion, For success there is no instant potion, And failure leads to societal demotion.   With the coming of middle age, We become camels, We struggle with responsibilities and obligations, For 2000 weeks we struggle with work, And somewhere we realise, ...

The Comfort Zone is often characterized as a 'barren landscape where nothing grows’.  In this blog I would like to examine the veracity of that metaphor. The comfort zone is a psychological state in which people feel at ease, and in control of their environment while experiencing low anxiety and stress. It is basically the set of behaviors and habits a person falls back into where they are not being actively coerced to do actions which they find uncomfortable, or they are not consciously making an effort to overcome themselves by putting themselves through hardship. I do not agree with the imagery of the comfort zone as a barren landscape, and I think that it is indicative of a fundamental flaw with our conception of the comfort zone. I do not wish to say that we should not strive to go out of our comfort zone often, for it is in those conditions that we achieve optimal performance. However, I wish to make the point that a healthy, non toxic comfort zone is just as, if not more...

The great mathematician GH Hardy once shared an anecdote of his meeting with S. Ramanujan: I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." Indeed, each number is special if we analyse it for long enough. Ramanujan and his work are regarded by many as the pinnacle of mathematical intuition. He could see patterns unravel themselves, and had also obtained a fundamental intuition for the numbers. Many of us have been exposed to this mathematical beauty occasionally throughout our study of the subject -the so called “joy of mathematics”- even though we may not feel it. For example, a repeatedly used number like one, two or zero doesn’t merely represent a concept, a definition, an object or a transformation. It is something that transcend...

  A word that gets thrown around quite a bit these days in media jargon and any type of intellectual discourse is a social media "Echo Chamber". Many people believe that most forms of radicalization in the current world can be attributed to such echo chambers. An echo chamber is a system where a person starts receiving opinions that strengthen their own and invalidate others' opinions that conflict with theirs. In other words, it is a   self-fulfilling confirmation bias . There is a lot of debate about such echo chambers. In the first place, do they even exist? People do not like to be proved wrong and also like to feel that their thoughts (and hence, actions) are perfectly rational and unadulterated. They insist that their radical opinions are formed solely on the basis of facts and that those accusing them of being in an echo chamber are trying to curb certain feelings among them so that they cannot form a united front to campaign for their demands. They feel that the a...

  Introduction The word meta comes up in a variety of different fields from philosophy to linguistics to theatre and even gaming. It represents an interesting concept and is often used as an adjective where an author breaks the fourth wall(like this!), when something refers to itself (like this blog post) or when we try to ascend one level of abstraction and analyze the governing dynamics of some process rather than analyzing the process itself. The word root meta comes from greek which loosely means change', 'between' and 'beyond'. In video game Jargon, it also means 'Most Effective Tactic Available', which is again, the discussion of the tactics behind the game instead of analyzing the game itself. To understand those definitions clearly, here are some words that are derived from the same root. Metacognition:  Thoughts about our own thoughts Meta conversation: A conversation about a conversation Metacriticism: A criticism of another criticism Metagame : A ...